Viral hepatitis (HBV and HCV) background in Chinese patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Antibody to hepatitis C virus (Anti-HCV) was detected using anti-HCV EIA (Abbott Kit) in the sera of Chinese patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), acute hepatitis, chronic hepatitis and blood donors, the positive rates being 10.4% (61/586), 11.8% (10/85), 19.2% (44/229), and 1.9% (3/160) respectively. HBV DNA was detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in sera from 61 HCC patients with positive anti-HCV, the positive rate for HBV DNA being 55.7% (34/61), which was lower than those with negative anti-HCV (78.7%, 413/525). These results indicate that in China the role of HBV infection in the causation of HCC seems to be more important than that of HCV infection. This paper is one of the symposium papers on primary liver cancer research (Chin J Cancer Res 6(1), 1994)